Canucks recognize Quinn with a place on 'Ring of Honour'

Iain MacIntyre, Vancouver Sun columnist03.03.2014

The 1994 Vancouver Canucks, who went to the NHL's Stanley Cup final, are joined by their coach Pat Quinn on the red carpet prior to the 2014 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic at BC Place Stadium Sunday March 2, 2014 in Vancouver. The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Ottawa Senators, 4-2.Ric Ernst
/ PNG

Clarke MacArthur #16 of the Ottawa Senators celebrates after scoring a goal against the Vancouver Canucks.Rich Lam
/ Getty Images

Vancouver Canucks left wing Alex Burrows (14) gets a push from Ottawa Senators defenceman Chris Phillips (4) during the third period of the Heritage Classic hockey game at BC Place in Vancouver, B.C. Sunday, March 2, 2014.Jonathan Hayward
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Clarke MacArthur #16 of the Ottawa Senators upends goalie Eddie Lack #31 of the Vancouver Canucks while crashing the net during the third period in NHL action on March 02, 2014 during the 2014 Tim Hortons Heritage Classic at BC Place Stadium.Rich Lam
/ Getty Images

Daniel Sedin #22 of the Vancouver Canucks and Marc Methot #3 of the Ottawa Senators battle for the loose puck during the second period in NHL action on March 01, 2013 during the 2014 Tim Hortons Heritage Classic at BC Place Stadium.Rich Lam
/ Getty Images

The Ottawa Senators and Vancouver Canucks shake hands after playing the Heritage Classic NHL game at BC Place stadium in Vancouver on Sunday March 2, 2014. Ottawa won 4-2.Darryl Dyck
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

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VANCOUVER — Calling the game the Heritage Classic failed to make it so Sunday for 54,194 fans who watched the Vancouver Canucks lose 4-2 to the Ottawa Senators. The nostalgic night was the previous one.

The Canucks’ 1994 Stanley Cup Final team, reunited by the National Hockey League to stoke interest in the giant indoor game beneath the closed skylight at BC Place Stadium, had dinner together Saturday at Rogers Arena.

Former coach and general manager Pat Quinn stood up and spoke from the heart about what made that Canuck team special and how fond he was of his players, some of them moved to tears and all of them on their feet applauding when the 71-year-old was finished.

Then they went downstairs, put on skates and Canuck practice jerseys, and played a joyful game of shinny. About 40 people, including arena workers, watched from the stands. Cliff Ronning and Greg Adams dominated. Quinn watched, as usual, from the bench before slipping away quietly to be with his wife, Sandra, home in West Vancouver recovering from surgery.

Seventeen years and two teams since he was fired in Vancouver, Pat Quinn still refers to the Canucks as “we.”

And finally that makes perfect sense, because the Canucks announced during the second period on Sunday that Quinn’s name will be added to the “Ring of Honour” inside Rogers Arena before Vancouver’s final game of the regular season.

At least the Canucks, sinking in the playoff race, will have something to celebrate on April 13.

“If you think about a great general or a great president, there’s just something about those people that elevate them forever,” Canuck chief operating officer Victor de Bonis, who joined the club 20 years ago when Quinn was also the team president, said before Sunday’s game. “And I think that’s what Pat had. I don’t think if he even knew he had it.”

“Everyone asks people what their legacy is,” ’94 captain Trevor Linden said. “It’s a hard one to answer. In this situation, it’s pretty clear the legacy he left. This organization in 1987 (when Quinn arrived) was irrelevant in this market. Nobody cared about hockey. He made hockey relevant again in Vancouver.”

Linden was among 17 Canucks players who celebrated their team and their former coach this weekend. Most of them stood behind Quinn as he spoke to reporters Sunday about being honoured by the organization he recast during his decade in charge.

“I never thought for a minute they’d take the time to come downstairs and listen to me again for the 10,000th time,” Quinn said. “I used to imagine when I walked out the dressing room they’d say: ‘Thank God we don’t have to listen to that stuff again.’

“I worked for some good organizations, but (they did) not have the influence on me and the emotional attachment that the Canucks did.”

That attachment is reciprocated, almost universally, in British Columbia. Besides Linden, Quinn is the nearest thing to Canuck royalty. He saved the franchise a quarter-century ago.

Quinn elevated standards and set expectations of excellence for the Canucks that exist still. He hired staff, like de Bonis and subsequent GMs Brian Burke and Dave Nonis, who had a massive influence on the franchise long after Quinn was fired by former owner John McCaw’s attorney in 1997.

And, of course, Quinn nearly won the Stanley Cup, losing Game 7 to the New York Rangers in 1994.

“I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t think of that in terms of not winning,” Quinn said before Sunday’s game.

“Watching at the end, I felt so bad for our players because they deserved better. They should have walked away with that Cup and not the Rangers. That didn’t happen, but it didn’t change the way I felt about their contributions. Those kids were just tremendous. People always ask me: ‘What do you remember about the games?’ Well, I don’t remember much about the games but I remember the people.”

Those people remember, too.

“Pat Quinn had great respect for the players and that respect came back to him,” defenceman Jyrki Lumme explained. “It was the same thing for the city and the fans and the community and everybody. It was not only hockey, but life, too. It’s just the man he is — the way he carries himself.”

Quinn went on to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs and led them to conference finals in 1999 and 2002. When he was fired again in 2006, the Leafs went seven years before another playoff appearance. Quinn’s coaching career ended in 2010 after a disappointing season in charge of the Edmonton Oilers, who are on to their third coach since then.

Including earlier coaching jobs with the Philadelphia Flyers and Los Angeles Kings, Quinn had 1,400 games behind NHL benches. His 684 career wins rank fifth in league history. He should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, too.

He never stopped being a Canuck.

“When I came here in ’87, it was a team quite frankly that was going out of business,” Quinn recalled. “Ownership was ready to sell it, but nobody wanted it. I was learning on the job how to bring people into the building and generate enough revenue to save this thing.

“We had some decent players when I came. But we had no team — no team concept. For those guys to do what you have to do to become a team ... to be proud of what your teammates bring and support them at every turn, I saw our team grow that way. And I was just as proud of that, I suppose, as the good young people they were becoming. That period became a source of great pride to me — definitely the highlight of my career in the National Hockey League.”

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